Ooh, guess what? I’m in lovely Italy this week. Holidays were reinstated at the end of March and I seriously felt the need to do some sleeping, smiling and walking at an ordinary pace. Bit of a nightmare booking something last minute on easter weekend but got there in the end. (Initially fancied going somewhere proper sunny, but flight connections were a total wanker – Can’t wait until Edinburgh has a second terminal and you can miss out the Heathrow bit)
Anyway, currently in Florence which is bathed in the most gorgeous dappled sunshine. How nice is it to see the light of day again? It’s lovely here. I’ve always wanted to visit. Went to see Michealangelo’s David (penis the size of a walnut - hands as big as a JCB) and the Trevi fountain (shitehawk mecca). Currently eating lunch, then off to the Medici Palace which from the pictures, looks like someone vomited solid gold, then out for some posh food tonight. Tomorrow i’m going to the Uffizi to see The Birth of Venus, then it’s off down the coast to Roma. Awesome.
Holidays. Love em. Oh, and Al is here too. Big smiles ACTIVATED on the jb.
09-Apr-07 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
The first and only time I went to Florence was for the first ever European Social Forum. It was a diabolical experience in every respect, we travelled by bus from Berlin which took like for ever, once there, they had nowhere to put the interpreters so we ended up in a dungeon, freezing most of the time, and jobs were so few and far between the most base and vile traits came out in every one of us to try to secure any assignment. Believe me, nothing is more desperate than a newly graduated interpreter, we weren’t even getting paid FFS!
Anyway, the most horrible experience I had there was when we decided to go for a pizza, it was Italy, it should have been a grandiose experience, sadly it was not. My pizza arrived looking like it had been bought in Iceland and thrown into the microwave, which is exactly what must have happened as it was still cold in the middle. Oh the disappointment!
09-Apr-07 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
The first and only time I went to Florence we had to sleep with the homeless people just outside the railway station. A nice homeless man showed us where we could sleep without getting moved on.
We were the first in line for the Uffizi when it opened the following morning.